1. Field of the Invention
The present specification is generally directed to a system and method of measuring, analyzing and/or reporting web traffic, predetermined events, and/or user activity on one or more web pages on an interactive computer network.
2. Background
As the World Wide Web continues to drive or at least play a significant role in modern day economics, it is particularly important for web site developers, owners, webmasters, etc., especially in the e-commerce business, to tailor their web site(s) and/or marketing and advertising campaigns associated therewith, so as to obtain the maximum financial gain or return on investment. For example, in an e-commerce business, the owner, marketing/advertising director, or other administrative contact may develop or deploy one or more marketing campaigns to direct consumers to one or more corresponding web sites via various advertisements. In particular, the web site(s), or the products/services offered for sale thereon, may be advertised through any one or more of a plurality of mediums, such as, for example, on other web site(s) throughout the Internet, print, television, radio, etc. In any event, the owner desires to maximize the financial gain obtained from the various marketing and/or advertising campaigns directed to the corresponding web site(s).
In order to maximize the gains and/or return-on-investment based upon the various advertising and/or marketing campaigns directed to a particular web site or a set of web sites, in addition to identifying how a user was directed to a particular web site or web page, for example, by the user responding to or reacting to a marketing or advertising campaign, it would be beneficial to measure, monitor, and/or analyze the traffic or navigation between various web pages on the web site. It would also be beneficial to measure, monitor, and/or analyze predetermined events and other user activity such as duration of time spent on the web site, mouse or pointer clicks and/or movement, etc. The study and/or monitoring of such behavior by web site visitors is commonly referred to as web analytics.
In particular, the study or monitoring of web behavior has been typically employed by two approaches, namely, web server log-file analysis and page tagging or web bugs. The first approach, i.e., web server log-file analysis, typically includes the employment of specially designed web log analysis software to analyze one or more log files retained on a web server. It is not uncommon for a web server to contain a log file with recorded transactions or other activity occurring on various web sites contained on the web server. In fact, the vast majority of web servers employ such log files. Recently, however, one or more web pages associated with a single internet domain name have been hosted on a plurality of web servers, with each web server having its own log file. Accordingly, as the number of web servers for a single internet domain increases, the less efficient log file analysis becomes.
Moreover, the most recent log file analyzers are commonly known to employ HTTP cookies in order to track visits or page views by web users. Cookies consist of text and/or other data transmitted to a user's web browser by a web server serving a web domain, and then transmitted back to the web server serving the web domain each time the particular web browser accesses the respective web domain. Cookies have been criticized and are disfavored for a variety of reasons. For example, cookies are a concern relative to Internet privacy, and as such, have been the subject of litigation concerning the same. In addition, cookies are commonly the source of the inaccurate identification of users, and can further be used for various, potentially hazardous, network attacks. Furthermore, cookies are often a disfavored means of obtaining information and/or tracking users in light of the fact that most modern day web browsers are equipped with settings or configurations that allow the user to reject cookies, thereby rendering some websites completely inaccessible or inoperable.
The second commonly utilized tactic to study or monitor web behavior, i.e., page tagging or web bugs, generally consists of one or more objects embedded in a web page that facilitates the ability of a server to track web users. In such a system, each and every web page for which the server is to monitor visits, views, or other activity, must be tagged or must otherwise include at least a portion of specifically designed and tailored program code. Furthermore, page tagging is also commonly implemented in conjunction with the use of cookies which, as noted above, are highly criticized and disfavored for measuring web traffic and other activity.
As such, it would be particularly beneficial to provide a system and method for measuring web traffic which is structured to easily and efficiently identify the source of the traffic, as well as monitor and analyze various predetermined events including but not limited to web page navigation, session duration, pointer clicks, etc. It would also be advantageous to provide a system and method which formulates a plurality of web pages associated with a web site without having to embed objects, program code, or other structures, devices, or elements on each web page in order to monitor traffic or other activity thereon.